DERELICT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Derelict

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/dˈɛrəlˌɪkt/ Listen

adjective

Derelict adj.

Given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; left and abandoned; as, derelict lands. "The affections which these exposed or derelict children bear to their mothers, have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion."

Lost; adrift; hence, wanting; careless; neglectful; unfaithful. "They easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his (Chatham's) friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy." "A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties."

noun

Derelict n. (Law)

(a)

A thing voluntary abandoned or willfully cast away by its proper owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.

(b)

A tract of land left dry by the sea, and fit for cultivation or use.

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Etymology of 'Derelict'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Derelict" Quotes from Famous Books

... be more foolhardy—this he admitted to himself—nothing, he consoled himself by reflecting, but something stronger than danger could justify it. Of all the motley Morgan following within the mountain fastness he could count on but one man to help him in the slightest degree—this was the derelict, Bull Page. There was no choice but to use him, and he was easily enlisted, for the Calabasas affair had made a heroic figure of de Spain in the barrooms. De Spain, accordingly, lay in wait for the old man and intercepted ...

— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... saw his little legs astride a horse again. He found, back of the blacksmith shop, the wreck of an old cart which years ago had been used for breaking colts; he improvised shafts and seat; he discovered the encouraging fact that Old Bots, a shambling derelict who had lost an eye when Wayne Shandon was quite young, was gentle and trustworthy. After that, wherever he went abroad, and he travelled all over the countryside, he rode in the cart, steering ...

— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... election either to place a force in Florida adequate at once to the protection of her territory and to the fulfilment of her engagements or cede to the United States a province of which she retains nothing but the nominal possession, but which is in fact a derelict, open to the occupancy of every enemy, civilized or savage, of the United States and serving no other earthly purpose, than as a post ...

— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... eight plays to Browning's most imperishable because most nearly immaculate dramatic poem, "Pippa Passes," and to "Sordello," that colossal derelict upon the ocean of poetry, I should like—out of an embarrassing quantity of alluring details—to remind the reader of two secondary matters of interest pertinent to the present theme. One is that the song in "A Blot on the 'Scutcheon," ...

— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... She's the derelict you chartered north of Flores outward-bound, She's the iceberg that you sighted coming back, She's the salt-rimed Biscay trawler heeling home to Plymouth Sound, She's the phantom-ship that crossed the moon-beams' track; She's the rock where none should ...

— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

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